Second Life MP3 Player
I read on Mashable about this new Second Life gizmo thingie from Cruxy. It’s meant to be like an in-game mp3 player (not really: after the discussion in the comments, I see that the metaphor of a remote control is more appropriate). Your Second Life avatar wears it and it streams music based on an xspf playlist. The one limitation, which is kind of major in my opinion, is that you have to own the land you’re on to hear the music. Oops! This is a current limitation of Second Life, which I hope they get rid of soon, because it makes a device like this so much less excellent than it could be.
I am not a landowner in Second Life, so I can’t hear if it works or not, but I’ve set up a playlist you can use if you want to try it out. Just go to this page on Cruxy to have the player sent to you – enter your avatar name and use this link for the playlist: http://www.jonathancoulton.com/playlists/cruxy.xpsf.
Keep on rockin in the virtual world…
Comments
Spiff says
What would you be doing on your virtual land where you'd want to sit around and listen to an in-game mp3 player? Especially since you're sitting in front of your computer and can just listen to your *actual* mp3 player (iTunes or whatever) while you do your virtual whatever-it-is-you're-doing. I'm afraid I'm going to have to assign a much lower Excellence Quotient to this new feature than you have. ;)
Aspera Eponym says
*Yay!* Massivel shiney! *read more*
"The player acts as a means to set the parcel music URL through an interactive script. For this to work, the land you are on must be owned by your or a group you are an officer in. Also the player must be deeded to the group on group-owned land. These are unfortunate limitations of the Second Life platform, which we hope will change soon. "
So a better analogy is a remote control to select what music you are presenting on your land and from what it says give people the chance to by the music they are hearing and give more money to Jonathan Coulton for the Evil genius that went into his songs. }}:D
So if we were to have a JoCo Dance party and advertise it, we could do it without having to hassle with streaming media, broadcast/multicast streaming, live DJs or any of the other things you'd have to do in order to DJ for a virtual group.
I have a plot of land that belongs to another group I run... If we donated a bit of land for the JoCo Bonobos group, we could have a have a JoCo Dance party and invite everyone who wants to come. And if Master Coulton comes, he can dance too. He wouldn't be stuck with his guitar, microphone, streaming media service, etc. Just his laptop.
Nathan of Cruxy says
Jonathan - you rock. Thanks for trying out our player even with the frustrating limitation of SL. With the new "voice beta" we are already thinking about how we can hijack that feature so that people can walk around with essentially a boombox - i think its going to get noisy fast in the metaverse, for better or for worse.
@Spiff: I think you missed the fact that in virtual worlds everything happens as a shared experience, so that all your friends/avatars who are hanging out with you also hear the same music at the same time. You can also "share the remote" so to speak and allow people to control the track thats playing and so on.
Even more, i think its really about ego and expression - I am psyched that I can now "wear" Jonathan's playlist around (even when i am not on my own land), and people will see what songs are on it, can click on the player, etc and link out...so its like wearing a t-shirt, but since its a virtual world you can (and should) do something more than just wear a t-shirt.
@Aspera Eponym: we at Cruxy would be more than happy to host a JoCo dance party - get in touch with me in SL and we round up the kids for some fun: Nat Mandelbrot
Eric Ginsberg says
I have never felt as old as I do right now, having just read that. It was like reading a different languate. Rewind to 1994 and say, "Hey, I just got a domain name and a website, hosted on a really secure server, with my e-mail already set up, two gigs of space and a guestbook," and imagine the look on your roommates face. That's how confused I am right now. I am old. This interweb thing confuses me. My website sucks because of it.
Damnit,
Eric
bryan campen (SL=cyrus huffhines) says
hey! my wife pointed out you are in here and I am a long time follower of little grey books. we are doing instructional work in SL in the spirit of the podcast this summer and have formed a real life touring group called Monster of Art. IM me in Second Life if you have time= I am cyrus huffhines.
Best,
Bryan Campen
Carlo says
not It's important. ,
Kristina says
Hi sorry for my english but how to download mp3 files in SL size about 40Mb. all size of files 3Gb even can pay for all this but dont now to whom lol
Nathan says
Someone should make a music player client side for SL. Running Winamp in the background only becomes a hassle and takes up power.